Wednesday, October 26, 2011

Another Backstabber Success Story

A friend of mine, a hard core carp angler (in the euro bait fishing style) invited me to come carp fishing with him next week, in a place that he said I was likely to be able to take one on the fly. Having never hooked a carp before, I eagerly accepted.

In anticipation, I started tying some carp flies today, and remembered your backstabber pattern. So I pulled up your blog and got the step by step on the screen and tied up a half dozen or so. As I was tying I couldn't see any reason why they wouldnt work for other species too, so I decided to take them out and give them a try. A few hours later and I hooked and landed my first fish on a backstabber...and what a fish it was. A big beautiful tiger trout, easily my best trout of 2011, and maybe ever (gotta measure the rod in the picture as a reference and see if it's at least 20").

Anyway, I just wanted to let you know about another backstabber success story!

Thanks, Mark

Thanks for the note, Mark! Stories like this make my day...hell, they make my year! I'll take this over Umpqua royalty checks any time! (well...until bills are due...)
--Jay

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Produced by Jay Zimmerman

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About Me

My goal is to bring fly fishermen together to share ideas, photos and stories. I work as a guide, instructor, writer and fly designer.
I have lived in many places…worn many hats (some fit better than others) and known many very different people.
I have worked as an archaeologist, infantry paratrooper, commercial halibut fisherman, hunting guide (Alaska and Canada), fly fishing guide, carpenter, and contract fly designer for Umpqua Feather Merchants and have written and published a book of fishing stories "In Neck Deep: Stories from a Fisherman" (Bottom Dog Press, 2004). And have a second book, "Top Ten Guide To Fly Fishing" (Lyons Press) due out March, 2013.

Top Ten Guide to Fly Fishing

One of the most accessible guide books on the market, this guide not only provides all the information beginning and intermediate anglers need in order to start catching trout, the information is also presented in a quick and easy, highly browsable format of top-ten lists.

"I've never seen so much good advice in one place. All how-to fishing books should be written by people who work in fly shops."

In Neck Deep

"There are moments of Zen clarity in these stories of Jay Zimmerman's fishing journey toward selfhood, and thank goodness, for they counterbalance moments of great uncertainty and intemperateness, nearly always refocused by the presence of creeks, rivers, oceans, and lakes. From Panama to Alaska and back to the Heartlands, the author finds in fishing and fish and the art of fly-tying a way to find his path into love and life. Think of Melville's Ishmael, reborn as a culture-shocked ex-paratrooper, struggling for meaning and accommodation in these contemporary chronicles of water, wildness, and meditation. This is a fine first book by a writer who has emerged."--Richard Hague, author of Alive in Hard Country